This is a review of one presentation from the Sustainable Sanitation Conference, co-hosted by SOIL and UNICEF in June 2012. For an introduction and general overview of the conference, or to find information about other presentations, click here.

Baudeler Magloire and Erinold Frederic of SOIL presented the evolution of SOIL’s ecological sanitation interventions since 2006.
The presentation began with a discussion of SOIL’s experience with permanent double vault UD toilets for public use, with an exploration of why this system has largely been a failure in northern Haiti. The failure was due in large part to the use of volunteer-based community management. The discussion then turned to SOIL’s emergency response activities in Port au Prince and how the double vault design was modified to meet the needs of high density IDP communities through the use of a drum based collection system and paid management.
The discussion concluded with SOIL’s strategy for moving forward, which includes modification of double vault toilets in urban areas to include the drum based collection system, increased focus on the development of household sanitation systems, and the creation of a business model for collection and treatment of wastes.

SOIL has been working in Haiti since 2006. The organization began work in northern Haiti and, from 2006 – 2009, constructed 54 public urine-diversion toilets like the one pictured here. This part of the presentation will focus on the successes and failures of this system and how the lessons learned in the first 3 years informed our work moving forward.

SOIL began in 2006 by building demonstration sites in schools where 3 different kinds of composting toilet (arborloo, fossa alterna and urine diversion toilet) were constructed so that the community could provide feedback and select the design that worked best for their situation.

Nearly all of the people who gave us their feedback preferred the urine diversion toilet so this was the design that we moved forward with over the next three years. The public toilets that we constructed had two chambers underneath, with only one being used at any given time. The urine was collected in a drum behind the toilet with an overflow pipe to allow urine to flow into a soak-away if not being used.

Here is an example of a public toilet in a rural area. All of the toilet constructed during this time period were built at the request of community organizations who said they would be responsible for the management. Although this tended to work better in rural areas than urban, we found that after the first few months the toilets began to fall into disrepair.

The problem of voluntary community management was even more pronounced in urban areas, where the number of people using the toilet was higher. In all approximately 20% of the toilets that SOIL constructed from 2006 – 2009 are still functioning and SOIL no longer constructs public toilets to be voluntarily managed by community groups unless they present a solid management plan.

In January 2010, SOIL sent a team to Port au Prince to assist with earthquake relief. In March Oxfam GB funded the construction of 200 emergency ecological toilets in 32 camps around the city. This part of the presentation will focus on how SOIL modified the design which we had been using in Cap Haitien to make it appropriate for an urban emergency setting.

It would not be appropriate to construct a toilet using cement block in a temporary camp, so the first modification that SOIL made was to construct the toilets using wood and tarps. This way they are cheaper to construct and easy to remove when people leave the camp.

The other modification, and perhaps the most important from a functional standpoint, was changing from a cement double chamber under the toilet to a drum system. A 15 gallon drum is placed below the toilet and replaced each time it is full, sealed with a lid for local storage and then collected weekly for treatment at an offsite composting facility.

Perhaps the most important difference between the emergency toilets and SOIL’s previous model in Cap Haitien was the management. After the emergency people were paid to manage the toilets in each camp where we constructed them. This paid management model worked excellent in contrast to the voluntary model. This has led us to rethink our toilets in the north to try to develop business strategies for managing them.

Given the large number of portable toilets imported into the country after the earthquake and the high costs of maintaining them, SOIL developed a way to modify them to make them ecological toilets with a drum system. This not only reduces smells from the toilets but also makes them cheaper to operate. SOIL is now using these toilets for communal toilets in several camps. Communal means that the toilets are shared by several families and are locked. No toilet manager is paid to maintain these toilets.

The truck drops the drums off at a centralized compost site where they are emptied into bins, cleaned and returned to the sites for reuse. Cover material (sugarcane bagas) is also transported to the sites weekly to ensure that the toilet users have an adequate supply.

So what has happened to all of those public toilets in the north. How is SOIL moving forward with them? This section will focus on our ongoing efforts to make the toilets that we built from 2006 – 2009 functional.

Making the toilets functional again is not easy. SOIL’s first strategy is to truly ensure that they have been properly passed off to the community, so that it is clear that ongoing maintenance is not SOIL’s responsibility. After community meetings in each of the areas that we have toilets the community has chosen a person to be responsible for the toilet. SOIL painted over our logos and signed a handover agreement with the person who is responsible for the toilet. SOIL will work with several groups to try to develop business model for managing toilet in markets.

SOIL had 3 public toilets in a neighborhood in Cap Haitien called Shada. Because of the seriousness of the cholera epidemic in Shada, SOIL decided to develop these toilets into sanitary blocks and pay toilet managers to clean the toilets. This is possible in Shada and not in other areas because SOIL is planning to launch a household toilet project in this neighborhood so we hope that the public toilets will not be necessary in the future.

Because of our experience in Port au Prince with a drum system, SOIL decided to modify the toilets in Shada to a drum system. This is because Shada is such a densely populated neighborhood that the chambers beneath the toilets were filling up too quickly and we were having to empty them before they had properly decomposed. The drums are collected weekly and taken to the compost site in the north and the community much prefers this system.

This is the reason we switched to a drum system in Shada. This was one of the first times we emptied one of the toilets when it still had a system with two cement chambers beneath the toilet. Because so many people had been using the toilet, the cave was only sealed for 6 months before we had to break into it, at that point it was still quite moist.

Pati sa ap fokis sou twalet (2) de kav ke SOIL toujou ap konstwi.

This section will focus on SOIL’s ongoing construction of public toilets with double chambers underneath.

SOIL has only constructed 3 double vault toilets in the past 3 years and these have only been in areas where there is a small group of users and a solid community management plan. This toilet is in a community center in Cite Soleil and is managed by a local organization. SOIL has worked with this group for over 5 years and they have proved their management capacity.

Here is an example of how the household toilet will work. The toilet has a drum beneath it which will be collected weekly for a small fee. The poop will be converted to compost in a composting site and then can be sold to help subsidize the cost of the service.

This is a toilet that we designed by Concern Worldwide and installed in 1500 transitional shelters in Port au Prince. The toilet has a drum system underneath. SOIL has been consulting with Concern to try to develop a system where people pay small monthly fees for bucket collection. There are currently 23 families that are paying 50 HTG per month and SOIL is working to increase this number of families.